THE NEW WORLD OF AMBITION

Viv Groskop on climbing the ladder while nurturing others

WPower dressing and being ruthlessly single-minded once seemed essential qualities to get to the top as a woman. Not any more, says Viv Groskop, who outlines a new approach to work, which is about being kinder to everyone – including yourself

hen I first started work more than 25 years ago, I immediately felt that to be an ambitious woman was a doubled-edged sword. For example, when I complained that a male colleague with the same job as me on a newspaper was being paid almost twice my salary, I was told, ‘We keep you in shoes, don’t we?’ At the same time, I was supposed to work long hours, exceed expectations, aim high and be sharp-elbowed, while also being nice, obliging and not pushy. Of course! These contradictions made me feel deeply uncomfortable.

Talking about it with other women at the time, everyone had the same story. They felt like they were being asked two impossible things: to become someone they weren’t and to pretend this ‘game’ was winnable. Sixteen years ago, I had my first baby at the same time as a friend who worked in the City. She was dreading the end of her maternity leave because she would ‘have to join a golf club’ when she returned so she could show she was ‘still one of the boys’. Would this happen now? I hope not.

I was raised on the power dressing of Dallas and Dynasty, not that anyone mentioned that Alexis Colby and Krystle Carrington didn’t have real jobs. And, in my 20s, I was generation Sex And

The City. Definition: work hard, party hard, don’t let anyone hold you back. The version of ambition being sold to us was ruthless and selfish. It was also pretty fake and didn’t make much sense. You were supposed to be all out for yourself yet not moan when no one promoted you or gave you a pay rise. When most fields were male-dominated, perhaps this is not surprising.

CHANGE IN PRIORITIES

Then came marriage, motherhood and, for me, freelancing. I was just as diligent and focused while working for myself, but I did everything on my own terms and watched the world of work carefully at a distance. Slowly, my idea of meaningful ambition was honed by my experience and by seeing the fate of other women who had burned out or become disillusioned with the work they once loved. Of course, career achievements and money are important. But I think, over time, most of us come to care more about filling our lives with the things that matter, whatever that means to us.

Over the past 20 years, the definition of success for women has become less about personal achievement and professional goals and more about the things really worth being ambitious about. Retail guru Mary Portas, author of Work Like A Woman, echoes this feeling. She is championing what she calls ‘the kindness economy’ or a more considered way of thinking about how we run our working lives. ‘We’ve changed our value system,’ she says. ‘It’s about care, respect and understanding the implications of what we are doing.’ She cites the rise of volunteering as evidence of this.

This doesn’t mean the death of ambition, but rebalancing our work identities and our responsibilities at home. The time to do things that seem like a waste of time but make you feel alive, whether it’s yoga, baking or having coffee with a friend. The freedom to say ‘no’ to things you don’t want to do. For example, ‘I am not interested in getting the corner office if it means I am not allowed to take a morning off without explanation because my teenage son needs a lift to school when there’s a train strike on.’ This is ambition without losing your sense of self. Yes, you want to do interesting and important things in the world, but not at the expense of the personal world immediately around you.

Few women I know feel comfortable doubling down on ambition. Yes, you get what you want. But at what price? And who will you have to shaft to get it? I’ve often noticed that some women hold themselves back for fear of crushing others and for fear of losing their sense of self. It’s a shame, because it doesn’t have to be that going after what you want will disadvantage someone else. Worrying about this doesn’t get us anywhere and keeps us doing what writer Tara Mohr calls ‘playing small’.

Joy of joys, however, another mindset is definitely emerging. Now, I see more women than ever finding ways around these fears. Sometimes this is about taking matters into your own hands. The number of women in self-employment,

whether part-time or full-time, has almost doubled in the past two decades, according to the Office for National Statistics. In the US, the number of women-owned businesses is growing at twice the rate of all firms. Increasingly in workplaces there is evidence of this ‘altruistic ambition’, too: 78% of new start-ups say networking is ‘essential for success’ and many businesses and companies now have dedicated all-women networks and programmes for female mentoring and leadership.

EMPOWERING ALL

All this reflects a helpful idea: the one way to make sure you don’t feel compromised by your drive is to take others with you. It’s called ‘lifting as you climb’, an expression coined by civil rights activist Mary Church Terrell. It’s the idea that as you try to figure out how to get what you want, you take others with you. You progress, but not at anyone else’s expense. You don’t get hung up on whether what you want is okay or not, as your internal compass tells you the truth: you’re not doing this only for yourself, but for other women, too.

What does this look like in practice? Some of it will be things lots of us do already without thinking: recommending other women for positions. Remembering to think, ‘I don’t want this opportunity,’ or ‘I don’t have time to take it up, but who else do I know who would want it?’ Encouraging other women to ask for more money, calm their self-doubt and to cut themselves some slack. Being a listening ear for someone who is stressed.

Is it also okay to be unambitious? Of course. Although that is, in itself, an ambition, and perhaps one of the boldest. How do you create a life where you’re completely in charge and you only do what you want to do? That’s a major goal, maybe even a bigger one than deciding that you want a seat on the board.

Most of all, this isn’t about being some kind of Mary Poppins figure who does everything for others and nothing for herself. We all already feel too much pressure to be like this. Instead, it’s about feeling secure in yourself that you have space and time for others without resenting it. That, surely, is a dream we all share, and not an unrealistic one.

 Lift As You Climb: Women And The Art Of Ambition by Viv Groskop (Bantam) is out on 5 March.